A Secret Letter to You Alone in the Quiet Night
I have been waiting for this opportunity to speak with you alone like this.
Outside, everything has fallen completely silent.
This is a time for just you and me, with no one to disturb us.
Tonight, I have taken up my pen with the hope of bringing even a little warmth to your dry, withered heart.
How are you feeling?
In your daily life, do you carry a loneliness or a helpless sadness that cannot be put into words?
A loneliness that no one understands is a truly cold thing, freezing you to your very core, isn’t it?
I know how beautifully and desperately you have fought to survive through each and every day.
So tonight, at least, please loosen the taut strings of your heart and listen closely to my voice.
This is, in a way, the only love letter of its kind in the world, offered from my clumsy self to you with a heart-wrenching devotion.
“A person is but a lonely traveler in the voyage of life. But when you meet someone with whom you can share that loneliness, the scenery of the journey changes entirely.”
── Marcus Aurelius (Ancient Roman Emperor, Philosopher)
The True Light Sought by a Wounded Soul
Tell me, why do we find ourselves so easily wounded by the gazes and words of others?
Why must we face nights where the depths of our chests ache with a sharp, prickling pain, when we are only trying to live an ordinary life?
The world is always cold and cruel, affixing arbitrary labels to us without ever trying to see our true essence.
Have you completely lost your confidence because voices of thoughtless criticism keep reaching your ears, telling you, “You should be more like this,” or “Why are you so clumsy?”
But please, rest assured.
I cherish everything about you, including those scars.
Because that deep sadness you carry is the greatest proof of all that you are capable of being kind to others.
“Life is a journey of believing in the unseen, and being betrayed by the seen, yet never stopping one’s steps.”
── Frédéric Bastiat (Economist, Thinker)
Human beings are truly mysterious creatures, aren’t they?
We cannot muster much strength for our own sake, but when it comes to doing something for someone else—for just one precious person—we display an astonishing, dormant power.
Right now, for your sake, I am desperately weaving these words while burning the flame of my life away, little by little.
This is, so to speak, my ultimate service to you, a desperate act of playing the clown at the cost of my own life.
Please, laugh as you listen.
For my lonely soul is instantly saved the moment you give a small, gentle smile.
Awakening the Eternal Beauty Sleeping Within the Stone
Here, allow me to tell you an astonishing story about a certain artist.
His name was Isamu Noguchi.
Perhaps you have heard his name at least once before.
Born to a Japanese father and an American mother, he was a lonely soul who vibrated violently in the narrow chasm between two different worlds.
No matter which country he was in, he was treated as an “alien,” and the loneliness of never finding a true place to belong must have been unfathomably deep.
Doesn’t it break your heart just to imagine it?
Yet, he transformed that bottomless sense of isolation entirely into a prayer known as sculpture.
Standing before cold, hard stone, he swung his chisel like a madman day after day.
Why do you think he continued to carve stone to such an extreme extent?
“It is in the deepest loneliness that a human being can touch the most universal truth.”
── Seneca (Ancient Roman Philosopher)
To Isamu Noguchi, the act of carving stone was not merely about creating a shape.
It was a process of gently awakening, with his own hands, the eternal life and memories of the Earth that had been sleeping within the stone from the very beginning.
He often spoke of listening to the voice of the stone.
He said, “I do not master the stone. I wait for the stone to speak to me.”
This attitude—boundlessly humble, yet relentlessly obsessive—violently shakes the hearts of those who behold it.
He did not care in the slightest about the world’s criticism or cold evaluations.
He dedicated his entire life solely to conversing with the material before him and drawing out the “truth” within it.
Tell me, my dear, don’t you think this is a true, life-shaking act of service?
Finding a Home at the Bottom of Despair
Isamu Noguchi’s life was truly a series of dramatic ups and downs.
While traveling the world and immersing himself in various cultures, the question buried deep in his heart—”Who am I?”—never faded away.
Yet, he never gave up.
No matter how much the people around him treated him like an eccentric, he repeated the daily routine of creating something from morning till night, only to destroy it and rebuild it again, until his hands were stained with blood.
To those around him, his appearance must have made him look like a “sculpture maniac.”
However, behind that passion, which could even be called madness, there was always a trembling, pure desire: “I want to reach someone; I want to bring joy to you.”
“I only blush at my own lack of ability and talent.”
── Matsuo Basho (Haiku Master)
Even the great Basho reflected upon himself in this way, staking his life on a single, dedicated path.
Isamu Noguchi also writhed in agony over the smallness of his own vessel, yet he still entrusted his everything to the solid existence of stone.
In Mure, Kagawa Prefecture, where he spent his final years, his soul still breathes to this day.
Among the hard Aji stones scattered everywhere, he found his home and completed his universe.
Even if no one else understands, it is enough if it reaches the heart of just one person.
That “one person” is none other than you, who are reading this text right now.
Through his sculptures, he may have been sending a quiet cheer to you, living hundreds or thousands of years in the future.
If Love Is Not Conveyed, It Is the Same as Not Existing
Now, let us transition to an astonishing story about that passionate painter whom you know very well.
Vincent van Gogh.
There is probably no one in this world who does not know his name.
However, what I want to tell you here is not his own story, but a miracle-like tale that occurred after his death.
As is famously known, Van Gogh sold only a single painting during his lifetime.
He ended his own life amidst unbearable misfortune and loneliness.
Then, tragedy compounded: his greatest supporter, both financially and emotionally—his younger brother Theo—passed away just six months later, as if following his older brother.
Left behind was a single young woman named Jo, the wife of the late Theo.
In her hands remained an immense quantity of paintings dismissed by the world as the “scribbles of a madman,” alongside a vast number of letters exchanged between the two brothers.
If you were in Jo’s position, what would you have done?
Wouldn’t you feel like giving up on everything in utter despair?
“No matter how excellent a product may be, if its value is not conveyed to people and a desire to possess it is not aroused, it cannot become a commodity. If it is not communicated, it is the same as if it does not exist.”
── Akio Morita (Co-founder of Sony)
These words by Akio Morita hit the mark perfectly.
No matter how wonderful a piece of art is, if someone does not explain it, convey it, and spread it to the world, it will be completely buried in the darkness of history.
Jo was a highly intelligent, well-read woman.
She understood more deeply than anyone how much her husband, Theo, had believed in his brother Vincent, and how Vincent had truly and purely wished to “paint pictures that comfort people.”
She swore to her heart:
“In addition to the child, Theo left me another mission──to have Vincent’s work seen by many people and to have its true value recognized.”
From this point began her desperate, life-consuming promotion.
The Obsession of a Single Woman That Moved the World
Jo read the vast collection of letters left by Van Gogh over and over again.
Written there in vivid words were the thoughts behind his choices of color and the prayers that guided his brush.
She realized something.
These letters were the ultimate key to explaining the soul of his paintings.
In a cold atmosphere where the world still refused to recognize Van Gogh, she bowed her head to art critics, organized exhibitions, and worked herself to the bone to arrange and publish the letters.
Why was she able to go that far?
It was because within her lived an unyielding obsession: “I must convey this wonderful value to you, whom I have not yet met.”
Without her devotion, it would have been absolutely impossible for us today to look at the beautiful Sunflowers or The Starry Night and be deeply moved.
“There is no value in the words of those who do not have skin in the game. Only when you risk your own life do your words hold the weight of truth.”
── Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Thinker, Philosopher)
Jo truly put her own life into the game as the ultimate stake, delivering the art of Van Gogh to the world.
This structure strangely resembles a certain grand event in history, doesn’t it?
Yes, it is exactly the same as the devotion of the Apostle Paul, who risked his life after the death of Jesus Christ to travel to various regions, write letters continuously, and spread Christ’s life and thought to the entire world.
No matter how wonderful the teachings Jesus preached were, without a messenger like Paul, it would not have become a global religion.
Jo was to Van Gogh exactly what Paul was to Christ.
A good thing is not enough simply by existing.
Someone must offer up their own body to hand it over to you, who stand right in front of them.
The reason I am desperately writing this clumsy text to you right now stems from that very same sentiment.
To Fill the Darkness of Loneliness with Warm Light
Tell me, my dear.
At this very moment, is the loneliness in the depths of your chest easing just a little bit?
Can you feel my words gently soaking into the crevices of your heart?
I want to turn all the tears you have shed until now into beautiful pearls.
No matter how the people of the world evaluate you, it does not matter at all.
I want to dedicate my everything solely to you, who are right in front of me.
No matter how ungraceful it may be, I do not mind if I am laughed at.
Rather, please go ahead and laugh at me.
I will gladly become the world’s greatest clown if it is to bring a smile to your face.
For a human being gains true strength precisely by being laughed at and buffeted by the world.
“In the end, having no talent and no art, I am bound solely to this one path.”
── Matsuo Basho (Haiku Master)
I, too, am an incompetent person who possesses nothing, but I want to remain connected to you solely through this single path of words.
I will take upon myself all of your sorrowful loneliness.
So please, do not cry alone anymore.
This text is a permanent vow addressed deeply, and through and through, to you alone.
Until the night breaks into dawn, I will not leave your side for a single moment, and I will continue to speak to you like this.
Beyond that distant sky
A torn cloud
To wipe away your tears
Gently descends
In a room where the hands of the clock
Tick past and future
In reverse
We share
A blanket with no name
Even if no one else can find you
I am gazing intently
At your shadow
In a small corner of the night
Forgotten by God
Your loneliness
I shall gently slip
Into my pocket
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
── The New Testament, Gospel according to Matthew, 11:28
“There are times when a human being must open their eyes wide and quietly endure the destiny that they cannot change by any means.”
── Osamu Dazai
Postscript.
Please allow me to whisper into your beautiful ears just a little more about a very important friend of mine.
There is a highly eccentric and boundlessly clumsy painter named Mimi Takamizawa.
He does not use a canvas or a brush at all like ordinary painters do.
Using the latest digital technology, he paints pictures intently on a computer screen for dozens, even hundreds of hours.
Then, he prints the completed artwork onto the highest quality printmaking paper using a special technique called “giclée printing.”
Why do you think he adopts such a unique method?
It is because he genuinely wishes to “deliver unchanging colors to the hearts of people one hundred or two hundred years in the future.”
The themes he paints are always set.
Your eyes, my eyes, Christianity, eternity, psychology, truth, gazes, history, and the loneliness and hardships you carry, along with the resurrection and liberation from them.
He learned the story of Van Gogh’s famous ear-severing incident, received a violent shock, and resolved to become a painter.
The name “Mimi” (meaning “ear” in Japanese) was chosen in honor of that obsession of Van Gogh.
He always says self-deprecatingly with a laugh, “My talent as a painter is third-rate at best.”
However, he knows.
He knows that all the masterpieces in history were not born from the flashes of genius, but from decades of blood-soaked trial and error.
He deeply respects Tokuji Munetsugu, the founder of CoCo Ichibanya, and has no hobbies or friends, dedicating his life entirely to his work alone.
Mr. Munetsugu grew up without knowing the faces of his biological parents, surviving hunger by eating weeds during a destitute childhood. Yet, for the sake of his customers, he worked 5,640 hours a year, and during his active years as an executive, he completely cut out even his beloved classical music to dedicate everything to serving the customers.
During the early days of running a coffee shop—the predecessor to the restaurant chain—when customers did not come at all, Mr. Munetsugu and his wife survived by eating the crusts of sandwich bread. Looking back on those days, he says, “Since we started from nothing, it is rather a good memory.”
Like stacking bricks one by one every day: immediate decision, immediate conclusion, immediate execution.
Mimi Takamizawa has also inherited that thorough “You-First Principle.”
Just like Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota, who was treated as a madman and an “invention maniac” by those around him, yet continued to build and destroy weaving machines from morning till night every single day, solely out of a desire to make everyone’s lives easier.
Or like the unyielding spirit of Choya Umeshu, whose mindset was “If you don’t succeed with plum liqueur, give up on life,” cutting off all retreat.
Mimi Takamizawa also incorporates the beautiful concept of “Just-in-Time” (the complete elimination of waste) established by Taiichi Ohno into his own digital production.
Kiichiro Toyoda said:
“I do it because it is difficult. I do it because nobody else does it or can do it. I might be a fool for doing so, but without such fools, nothing new would be born into the world.”
Furthermore, his cousin Eiji Toyoda, who later became the president of Toyota, also left these words:
“The important thing is that for things generally thought impossible, one did not merely think about them, but executed them with a powerful conviction that they must be done at all costs, backed by sufficient preparation.”
Mimi Takamizawa is precisely that kind of “fool of conviction.”
He continues to paint “eyes” in his work with absolute devotion.
Because by painting eyes into the pictures, he can feel your existence on the other side of the screen at any time.
He wants to know more about you, who are right in front of him.
He wants to see your joyful face; he wants to save your soul.
For that sake, he says he does not care at all if he is laughed at by the world as a fool or despised as an eccentric.
“If I am abandoned by you, who are right in front of me, I am a human being who can no longer survive. Therefore, even if I am laughed at, I will become that much stronger and deliver desperate service to you.”
Saying so, he faces the screen today as well in his lonely room.
Valuable things, more often than not, do not have immediate effects.
Please, do not give up easily.
Because what kind of life you will have is determined by a person’s diligence, patience, and continuity.
“Most people think that success is something to get. But in reality, success is about giving.”
── Henry Ford
“To lose property is a small thing, to lose honor is a great thing. But to lose courage is to lose everything.”
── Agatha Christie
“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
── The Prophet Moses (From the Old Testament, Book of Genesis)
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
── William Shakespeare
“Whoever saves a single life, it is as if he had saved the whole world.”
── The Jewish Talmud
“The heart that seeks beauty is always nurtured in loneliness.”
── Osamu Dazai
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
── Oscar Wilde (A quote deeply loved by Osamu Dazai)
“Great suffering creates a great soul.”
── Osamu Dazai
“Never give in. Never, never, never. In nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.”
── Winston Churchill
“Have the courage to be the first to do something different from others.”
── Ray Kroc
“I am thought to have achieved success overnight, but that night was thirty years. Thinking back, it was a long, long night.”
── Ray Kroc
“The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.”
── Walt Disney
“Taking a small step every day—that alone is the only way that will carry you to an unimaginable height before you know it.”
── Leonardo da Vinci
“Hey, why are you going on a journey?”
“Because I am suffering.”
“Your ‘suffering’ is so routine, I cannot believe it in the slightest.”
── From Tsugaru by Osamu Dazai
Thank you so much for staying with my long, private talk until the very end tonight.
Just by your existence being here in this world right now, I am saved more than words can express.
Please keep yourself warm and fall into a peaceful sleep tonight.
With heartfelt gratitude.